Dice were thrown, cards were dealt and shots were fired inside a Brooklyn social club Saturday morning, leaving four dead and three others injured.
36-year-old Terrance Bishop was one of the victims.
His brother, who he recently connected with, visited the spot where he was killed.
“I just met him,” said Eddie Baldwin, Bishop’s brother. “I can count on my hands how many times I have been around him. I’m lost.”
Police say the calls came in just before 7 a.m. Saturday morning, just two short blocks from the 77th precinct at the Triple A Aces Private and Social Event Space.
The responding officers abandoned another gun-related arrest to get to the scene.
When they arrived, four men ranging in age from 32 to 49 were pronounced dead, three others were wounded and taken to local hospitals with non-life threatening injuries.
“It is sparsely decorated. We do not see any evidence of alcohol consumption. What we see is evidence of some gambling, specifically cards, specifically dice,” said NYPD Chief of Detectives Dermont Shea.
Investigators say the shooting did not appear to be gang-related.
The incident is the second mass shooting in Brooklyn in the last three months, and it’s renewing calls from the community and local elected officials to get handguns off the streets and more violence intervention programing.
“Conflicts are being resolved with gun violence,” said Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams. “At the heart of this is how we are resolving conflict. Their belief is we have to look at how we resolve conflict. My issue is to deal with the over-proliferation of guns.”
The suspected illegal gambling activity was on the bottom floor of a residential building, and police say it was operating in a space without the proper business licensing.
Community members are stunned.
“It was right next to a precinct!” said one local. “A precinct is across the street from this crime scene. Nobody know nothing, that's our problem. Nobody values our lives over here."
Police say they have several people at the precinct in for questioning, but no arrests have been made as the investigation is still on-going.